After our breakfast, Tony gave me a grand tour of the bunker. He certainly had put some thought into this secret home of his. Along with the living room, the dining room and the guest bedroom, there were a few other surprises. He stayed in a grand master bedroom which had an adjoining bathroom, which he appropriately enough did not show me. There was even a sort of exercise room – at least, that is what I guessed it was – all decorated in black and red, dedicated to Tony's martial arts. He spouted off a lot of Japanese terminology and philosophy which went right over my head. Also, there was a library room, crammed full of books, DVDs, files and such with a cozy sofa to relax at. I could just picture him up in the long hours of the night, drinking a sherry and reading Machiavelli. The rest of the place consisted mainly of security posts, servants' quarters (although Bart was the only employee there that I was aware of on the premises) and more technological mumbo jumbo that I did not even pretend to understand.
"I hope you will find your stay here comfortable..." Tony said.
"Well, to be honest with you, Tony..." I began. "The fact of the matter is I don't know how well this is going to work out. You see, I'm used to working hard and living life in the fast lane, you know. I'm really not the type to lounge around a manor and eat bon-bons."
Tony laughed at my remark.
"No, I should say that you are not! But as I said before, I expect this will only be a temporary situation. EJ will slip up sooner or later."
I shook my head in disbelief.
"According to you, EJ has been secretly behind some of the largest Dimera schemes for years. What makes you think that he's going to get caught any time soon?"
"With the finest of the Salem PD on his trail, it's only a matter of time..."
I wasn't amused at what I assumed was a joke.
"Seriously, I think I might go insane down here."
"Well, perhaps I can come up with some sort of amusement for you. Actually I already have a little surprise for you which I hope you will like."
"Really?"
I was immediately suspicious. A surprise from Tony Dimera probably was bad news.
"Yes, come with me."
Tony escorted me to the library. His hand was on my elbow in that polite way of his. And the heat of his touch was burning straight through the fabric of my purple tweed jacket. I sighed with aggravation, wishing I wasn't so conscious of him all of the time. What was wrong with me, for heaven's sake?
"Everything alright?" Tony asked, concerned at my fidgeting.
"Yes," I said quickly, trying to think of an excuse for my rudeness. "I'm sorry. I didn't sleep so well last night."
"Oh, is the bed uncomfortable? Perhaps we could..."
"No. Nothing like that, just...mild insomnia. Crazy dreams."
I wish I hadn't have said that, because then I remembered the way he had looked in my dream last night…taking off his cufflinks in the dark…
"Oh. Well, perhaps once you are more used to being here, your tension will subside. Along with your misgivings."
"Maybe."
I knew the sort of tension that I was suffering from was only growing with every minute of time I spent with Tony. Both nervous tension...and a more insidious sort of tension…
That was another reason why I doubted that my stay here was a good idea.
I did not like the perverse direction that my mind had been going in the last 24 hours. Renee and her darned haunting was responsible for it all, but still I felt horrible about myself for having such incestuous thoughts and fantasies about my own uncle. Granted, he was not helping the situation with his teasing remarks. But I suspected that flirting just came naturally to him and that there was nothing truly serious behind his words. Surely not. He knew we were related, after all.
Poring through a collection of albums on a nearby bookshelf in the library, Tony pulled out a small leather photo album.
"I thought you might be interested in this."
As I turned the pages, I saw that these were all faded photographs of Renee Dimera. There was little documented about her childhood, but in the later pages, there were all sorts of photographs and articles about her. A whole section covered her wedding to David Banning. There were various photographs of her at charity parties and social functions. Always she looked very beautiful.
"Oh, my gosh..." I sighed, sitting down on the couch with the album. With all of the research I had done, some of this stuff I had never come across before. This was pure gold. "You kept all of this?"
Tony nodded, sitting beside me.
"My way of remembering her, I suppose. I stole it from my father's home. Ssshhh!" he warned teasingly. "Don't tell him. He'd be very cross with me."
"This is incredible..."
"I didn't trust her memories to be safe in the hands of my father. With his crazy schemes, his homes have a way of getting blown up or burned down. Since you are her only remaining relative and have such an interest in her life, I suppose you are entitled to have this album. Consider it a gift from me."
"Oh, no, I couldn't..." I protested. "I didn't even know her really. She'd want you to have them."
"I'm not sure about that," Tony answered. "I suspect Renee would be bitterly disappointed at how I've turned out."
For a while, he was silent and seemingly depressed. I looked dumbly at the album, worrying about the state of things. Well, this was an awkward situation...
"Well, I suppose…" I said in an attempt to break through the ice. "She probably would not have wanted you to take the rap for another man's crimes, to sit back and waste your life away for the rest of your days and just give up..."
Tony smirked with amusement.
"Is that what Renee would have wanted?" he asked. "Or is that what you want?"
"It's what I want, I guess," I admitted. "Do you think I'm like her? Besides just the physical resemblance?"
He shrugged with a faint smile.
"I really don't know you well enough yet to say."
"Of course not."
I felt foolish for even asking the question.
"From what I perceive, you seem much more grounded."
I flinched.
"Is that a polite way of saying that I'm boring?"
"Not at all! Please, someone like you? Getting blown up in cars, a secret Dimera, on the run for your life...are you kidding me? You are anything but boring!"
Tony paused for a moment, choosing his words carefully.
"You just seem more stable, perhaps because you were fortunate enough to grow up in a real home with loving parents." Again, there was the sad misty look in his eyes. "Renee was always a bit of a lost soul. But she was passionate, volatile, beautiful, exciting..."
I suddenly felt like an ugly cockroach in comparison to my glamorous ghost.
"You must have loved her very much…" I said softly, feeling horridly jealous of a dead woman.
"Yes," he admitted. "But I don't know that we would have ever really been happy together once the first rush of passion had passed. As you may have heard, I can be a very temperamental man."
"You?" I asked, half-joking.
"And Renee could also be impulsive and reckless, obsessive and cruel, self-destructive. She represented both the best and the worst of all the Dimera qualities. If we had really had a chance to be together..." He sighed with a fatalistic shrug. "Well, who knows if we would have lasted or not?"
"But you turned out to really be Stefano's son. So it never would have worked out, right?"
As an afterthought, Tony said, "Oh, yes, of course...you are right about that, aren't you?"
A warning bell went off in my head. There was some clue and I was missing it.
"You are welcome to look at any of these old family photos if you care to."
He pulled out a few more albums.
"Photos of Stefano, Daphne, Peter, Kristen, Megan, Benjy...the whole cursed lot of us," he said with a sardonic grin. "Quite a family you've inherited. You have my apologies."
"I find it all very fascinating..." I admitted, clutching at the albums gleefully.
"I believe that you truly do," he chuckled. "Listen, my fencing master will be arriving soon. A way for me to stay fit with my hermit lifestyle. Please, my dear, you can entertain yourself in the meantime, can't you?"
"Sure," I answered.
Turning from one picture to the next, I tried to take in this bizarre family history. There were many pictures with European backgrounds, perhaps having been taken in Italy...mysterious pictures that told unknown stories. It was hard to imagine Stefano Dimera ever being a toddler, but there he was. He had actually been pretty adorable with big brown innocent eyes and curly black hair. I wondered what had happened to change him from that cute little boy into the legendary Phoenix…
What a story this would make! Prying into the deep dark crypt of the Dimera secrets...
Once I was out of here, I would write an expose all about living in the secret hideout of the infamous Tony Dimera. And I would write all about Aremid and David Banning and the cover-up with the Salem Stalker murders. Man, Jack Deveraux would be so envious of me right now!
And then I thought about Jack and my job at the London Spectator and how I had meticulously planned for years to have this moment…where I could truly learn about my past and where I really came from. Here I was with all of the forbidden Dimera lore at my fingertips in this underground compound.
I should have felt victorious, ecstatic for having reached such goals...but mostly I only felt deeply afraid...
Such a realization took me to a dark place in my mind.
I thought of my adoptive parents and how normal they were compared to the Dimeras. Our family albums had been much different. There were no nannies or boarding schools or palaces in Italy, no bodyguards or power struggles. I was just a simple kid...playing games with my friends on the playground, watching old black and white movies with my mom on the TV, going to McDonalds for Happy Meals...that was me. The real me. And now here I was, isolated from the world and on the run for my live, minus any friends or family save a notorious uncle who could be called eccentric at best.
For the first time in years, I felt horribly homesick for the simple life and family I once had in Georgia. And that sweet stupid kid I used to be was gone now. She sort of died with her parents in that car crash too…
No, I'm not going to cry, I told myself. I'm not going to cry!
But tears of grief spilled over as I thought about my parents and how much I missed them. I covered my mouth to keep from screaming. Taking a deep breath, I tried to control myself. How crazy this was, getting so upset about them after all of this time...
Burying my head in my hands, I took deep breaths in an attempt to calm down.
"Leigh?"
Oh, great!
"My dear...what is it?"
I heard Tony Dimera rush to my side, sitting beside me on the sofa. I must have been sitting like this in shocked grief for some time, I realized. Tony smelled like he was fresh out of the shower after his exercise.
"Are you ill?" he asked.
Looking up at Tony, he seemed truly upset to see me in such a state. And I probably was a messed-up wreck too! I was never one to cry with dignity. I was probably all snivelly and red-faced.
"Take my handkerchief, please..."
I touched the white silky fabric to my hot cheeks. God, the handkerchief alone probably was worth one of my checks from the London Spectator! Such luxury and wealth truly intimidated me, only emphasizing how out of place I was. Celeste had been right. I had simply been trying to find some hobby to distract myself from loneliness and grief. So I became obsessed with Dimera history. And I couldn't have picked some safer hobby like shark hunting?!
"If there's anything I can do..."
I was horrifically embarrassed to be discovered in such a state.
"Tony, please..." I begged. "Don't make a fuss over me. I hate whiny little crybabies...and here I am being one!"
"Well, you've been under an enormous amount of stress..."
He patted my shoulder reassuringly...like I was just a little kid.
"I guess all of these albums got me to remembering my family. My adoptive family. They died...in a car accident...a few years ago."
"Yes, Celeste told me."
"I just had some intense memories of what it was like growing up with them. That's all. I thought I was over all of that." I handed him back his handkerchief. "Thanks."
"You really have suffered terribly, haven't you?"
"Well," I shrugged. "I guess everyone has a story."
"Yes. I also know what it is like...to lose a parent. And you never really get over the loss. You just learn to live with it."
"Are you talking about your mother?" I asked.
"Yes, Daphne Dimera," he answered. "She died too young. Another victim of one of Stefano's...little adventures."
He shook his head bitterly.
"Just one more reason for me to hate Stefano forever! She truly loved me...in her way. I didn't always approve of her methods, but...she protected me from Stefano the best way that she could. So many people think of me as the son of Stefano Dimera, but I'd like to think that I have at least some of my mother's qualities. If she had lived, how differently everything might have turned out for everyone involved."
I nodded in sympathy.
"If my parents had lived, I'd probably be teaching journalism classes out in Georgia instead of being on the run from international criminals."
"Then we'd never have met."
Tony touched my hand gently. I looked up to see him smile at me with what I suspected was tenderness.
"And I can't regret that. I do like your company, Leigh."
"Wait 'til you get to know me better and then we'll see..." I smiled. "You've already discovered that I can be a real downer at times..."
"I don't mind," he admitted. "No one has cried on my shoulder in a long time. I'd almost forgotten what it felt like."
------------------------------------
"Do you like to dance?"
"What?"
Over dinner, I was trying desperately to seem sophisticated and failing miserably. I had already blatantly displayed my ignorance of wine. When Tony asked what wine I would prefer, I said Merlot. I judged by his dubious expression that I had failed the first pop quiz of the elite. Now I was trying to precariously spread black caviar over a tiny thin cracker without making a complete idiot out of myself. I had not even figured out yet how I was going to actually swallow the icky stuff.
"Do you know how to dance?"
"You mean like ballet?"
He laughed.
"I mean the tango, the rumba, the waltz...you know..."
"Oh, ballroom dancing!" I enthused.
"Yes!"
"No, I absolutely have no idea how to do any of that stuff. But I love DANCING WITH THE STARS."
"Hmmm...any interest in learning?"
I smiled.
"You want to teach me how to tango?" I asked dubiously.
"Yes. It would be fun! I haven't danced with a woman in ages."
Great. Now after seeing what a basketcase I was and what a messy eater I was, he could now see what a klutz I was as well!
"It would all be completely innocent, I assure you…"
Shocked that he would even suggest otherwise, I probably overreacted a bit.
"Of course it is, Tony! I know that! It's just…well, in the middle of dinner?"
"Don't be silly! It's just us. We don't have to stand on ceremony here."
Spoken by a man who wanted me to dress up formally for dinner, I thought.
But I had to admit that I looked elegant in the midnight blue dress laced with jewels that I had found in the closet. I even managed to make my hair look somewhat presentable, piling it up in a makeshift chignon. Even if my resemblance to Renee was becoming almost uncanny, I did not mind. How could I when I looked like I was starring in some romantic old film?
"OK," I agreed. It would be a shame for such a nice dress to go to waste.
Tony was a patient instructor, walking me through the paces of a tango, showing me the proper hold and posture. It was not as easy as it looked.
"You're a natural!" Tony enthused. "And you learn so quickly."
"Thanks," I said, grimacing as I almost stepped on one of his expensive leather shoes.
At one point, I almost tripped but Tony caught me, saving me from a completely graceless plummet to the floor. With his hands on my arms, holding me closely against him, this was the most physical contact I had with him since I arrived. He was deceptively strong and so masculine. I couldn't help but admire his handsomeness, even with the tiger scar on his face. And he wore a deep rich cologne that could have been an aphrodisiac of some kind because it smelled so enticing. I felt as if I were falling under a magic spell.
"Sorry, I guess I have two left feet..." I whispered.
"You're enchanting," he answered, his voice husky and seductive.
Stunned by his comment, I noted that there was no trace of that cynical jaded expression right now. He seemed to be more like the younger Tony in my dreams. And the wicked gleam in his eyes...he looked as if he were going to eat me alive. And I felt him pull me closer...as if he were about to kiss me…
No, he wouldn't! He couldn't!
My mind was whirling with a million reasons why this was a bad thing to do, the primary one being that we were related to each other!
"Um, Boss..."
The soft romantic expression on Tony's face faded quickly.
"WHAT, BART!" he snapped, causing me to jump out of my skin. "You know I instructed for us not to be interrupted during dinner!"
"Sorry, Boss...but it's important..."
"Oh, very well..." Tony sighed. "Excuse me, my dear...I hate to interrupt our lovely dance. WHAT IS IT, BART?!"
Bart and Tony went off down the hallway, talking conspiratorially. I wondered what sort of business Tony would be up to, when no one even knew his true identity and existence down here.
I sat down, trying to pull my frazzled nerves together. What had just happened? What did we almost let happen? I was sick with the knowledge that if he had kissed me, I wouldn't have stopped him. I wanted him to kiss me. And that was so wrong...
"What's going on here?"
I looked up to see Bart staring at me angrily, hands on his hips, looking like he was on the verge of beating me up.
"What?"
"I thought you were the Boss' niece!"
"I am!" I gasped.
"So what was all that I just saw?"
"Who are you?" I responded, defensively. "His guardian angel or something?"
"Look, I don't trust you, lady!" Bart started, wagging a finger at me with a warning. "I don't think you are who you say you are!"
"Well, I don't care what you think! Bring Tony back in here! How dare you speak to me this way!"
"You think I didn't plan that whole thing?" Bart said. "I wanted the Boss out of the way so we could talk! I just want you to know that I've been with the Boss through thick and thin...mostly thin these days! And I know how crazy he can get over a dame, and..."
"Just what are you implying?"
"I know what I saw! And I know how the Boss gets! And if you really are his niece, it's disgusting! I've got to tell you that! The Boss don't need that kind of trouble!"
I didn't know whether to get angry or laugh at Bart's audacity.
"Well, Bart, I don't know what you think you saw, but we were merely dancing the tango. That's all."
"Yeah, right," he sneered.
Tony entered the room.
"Bart, I should fire you for your incompetence!" he barked. "Lord, what a waste of my time!"
He then paused, obviously sensing the tension in the room between me and Bart.
"Is something wrong?" he asked with a raised eyebrow, instantly wary.
"No, Tony," I answered coolly. "I think I'm a bit tired."
"But..."
"You don't need to see me to my room," I said quickly, hurrying to make my exit.
------------------------------------------
As I was getting ready to attempt to get some more sleep, there was a knock on the door.
In a panic, I looked in the mirror. I was barely even dressed! Slipping on a robe, I peered outside the bedroom door, hoping that Tony wouldn't faint on sight at the real me sans evening gown and makeup.
It was Bart.
"Nothing going on, huh?" he commented, thrusting a bouquet of flowers under my nose. "So what do you call these?"
"These are from Tony?"
"Of course. Who else? And let me tell you, I don't really care to have to play Cupid for you guys either..."
I ignored Bart as I studied the card.
Thank you for the dance. Tony.
And the flowers were white roses...Renee's favorite flowers…